Bonnie and Clyde: The Lives Behind the Legend

by Paul Schneider

Book Overview

The flesh-and-blood story of the outlaw lovers who robbed banks and shot their way across Depression-era America, based on extensive archival research, declassified FBI documents, and interviews The... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0805086722
• ISBN13: 9780805086720
• Release Date: March 2009
• Publisher: Henry Holt & Company
• Length: 382 Pages
• Weight: 1.54 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

lie's revealed true told

Ok, I have read all these reveiws. Most of them are good reviews, but they do not tell you what the substance of this book is really about. This Book is about who Bonnie and Clyde really were. I have read everything on clyde and bonnie. Every book that I have read, up to Jeff guinn have few facts in them, except for a couple of books ( john neal Phillps and woodward) Giunn does and great job with Clyde and his family, but for some reason he rips Bonnie and Emma to robbins, calling Bonnie a prostitute. I have been reserching Clyde and Bonnie for 4 years and found that what has been told about them over the years is about 10% accurate. Paul gets it and gets at about 90%, so if you want to get to know Clyde Barrow ans Bonnie Parker this is the book to read.

My fifth book on Bonnie & clyde

The lives behind the legend is the fifth book on Bonnie & Clyde that I have read. This book was well written and more details than the other four. I`ve always thought about their personal hyglene on the road. This was never written about, in such detail, till this book. This probably will be my last book on Bonnie & Clyde, I feel all of my questions are answered. Jack Kimble Bakersfield, Calif.

Bonnie and Clyde: The Lives Behind the Legend

Of the books I've read on Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker, this one is most unique. The author gives, at times, first person accounts. Given from written records and the hindsight of history. This is a book you have to pay close attention to but, well worth the effort. You are not going to learn lots of new information but, the first person accounts make this an important book. Highly recommended!!!

The Best Way of Telling History

I'm the last person in the world to criticize an unconventional style, so I won't. One of my own teachers in the writing of history was the incomparable Walter Lord - who, using intricately researched archival evidence cross-referenced with interviews with firsthand eyewitness participants, was able to bring the attack on Pearl Harbor ("Day of Infamy" ["Tora! Tora! Tora!"]) and the sinking of the Titanic ("A Night to Remember") fully alive in readers' minds. (The author's notes suggest that he followed Lord's advice: "When you have 3,000 pages of material, you are ready to start writing. You just have to remember to focus and boil it down to only the most important 300 of those 3,000 pages.") Paul Schneider expands and elaborates on the Lord tradition. The conversations used are extensively referenced, and though the style may be off-putting to readers more accostomed to dispasionate historical analysis, after only about ten pages, one easily settles in. While some of the people giving interviews on which conversations and thoughts are based, might have been self-serving (perhaps changing stories or even inventing new ones over time), this is no different from what we encounter at any crime or disaster scene, and the extensive author's notes give insight into how this common challenge was addressed. I recommend readers to start at the end of the drama. You'll be hooked into the style - and when you turn to the beginning, you'll find it just as engrossing. There is simply no other way to put you inside the the story, feeling the hunger, and the desperation of being hunted (to say nothing of being in amongst the hunters). Clearly, this was never meant to be a dispassionate analysis of events. This is a visceral, you-are-inside-it story of life on the run and toward inevitable execution that stands up well beside (and as possible heir to) Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood." In fact, this book belongs on the same shelf, wherever Lord and Capote are found. - - Charles Pellegrino

Bonnie and Clyde

Bonnie and Clyde: The Lives Behind the Legend If an amusement park spent millions on a Bonnie and Clyde adventure extravaganza, you would not get a more thrilling ride than might be had by reading, Paul Schneider's latest book, "Bonnie and Clyde, the Lives behind the Legend." Clyde Barrow came of age during the Great Depression, if it can be said that he came of age at all -- he was killed when he was 25 (Bonnie Parker, at 24.) This May marks the 75th anniversary of their deaths. Among the street toughs in and around Dallas, Texas, Barrow worked his way up from petty theft to cars and eventually banks. His reputation grew, and as he managed to stay ahead of the law, his real life exploits came close to matching, and in some cases exceeding, that reputation. Mr. Schneider ("The Adirondacks," "The Enduring Shore," and "Brutal Journey") conjures a very palatable desperation as well as the excitement of life on the run -- a life with a limited future. His deft delivery will have the reader sweating along with Clyde and his gang, feeling the hunger, desolation, exhaustion, and the camaraderie among thieves. The story is like a Greek tragedy. There are no surprise endings in traditional Greek tragedy, and no surprise endings in "Bonnie and Clyde." (Most of us have seen the 1967 movie starring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway.) But it is not the end, but the journey that makes this book worth reading. Yes, the story includes the car chases, gun battles, and the extraordinary coincidences and bad luck that fed the legend. But there are also the personal battles and questions, Bonnie's poetry and unfailing sense of style and devotion, the thoughts of family, friends and adversaries, and the historic backdrop of Texas during the Depression. Almost immediately, Mr. Schneider sets the stage and mood with his mastery of descriptive prose. He moves between a narrative that at times seems to mimic those 1930 movie narrators -- part third person omniscient vernacular, and an unusual second person omniscient voice that somehow puts you in the center of all the activity. Perhaps the most unusual and impressive aspect of this book is that every quoted personal conversation is comprised of words that were actually spoken or written about or by the people doing the talking. These quotes are referenced in 343 citations at the end of the book. Mr. Schneider's ability to rehash and synthesize massive quantities of data into an absorbing read is nothing short of masterful. Paul Schneider has written another winner. It may be his best book yet.